The Deceiver (55 page)

Hannah checked his watch. It was half-past eleven, and the heat lay heavy. “Will she be in at this hour?” Oscar looked puzzled. “Of course, sah.”

“Take me to see her, will you?”

The Jaguar wound its way out of town, then began to climb the lower slopes of Spyglass Hill, six miles west of Port Plaisance. It was an old Mark IX model, a classic by now, made the old-fashioned way, redolent of aromatic leather and burnished walnut. Hannah sat back and watched the landscape drift by.

The lowland scrub gave way to the greener vegetation of the upland slopes, and they passed small plots of maize, mangoes, and papayas. Wooden shacks stood back from the road, fronted by dusty yards where chickens scratched. Small brown children heard the car coming and scampered to the roadside to wave frantically. Hannah waved back.

They passed the neat white children’s hospital that had been endowed by Marcus Johnson. Hannah glanced back and saw Port Plaisance sleeping in the heat. He could make out the red-roofed warehouse on the docks and the ice house next to it where the frozen Governor slept, the gritty sprawl of Parliament Square, the spire of the Anglican church, and the shingles of the Quarter Deck Hotel. Beyond, on the other side of town, shimmering in the haze, was the walled enclosure of Government House. Why on earth, he wondered, would anyone want to shoot the Governor?

They passed a neat bungalow that had once belonged to the late Mr. Barney Klinger, rounded two further curves, and emerged on the top of the hill. There stood a pink villa, Flamingo House.

Hannah pulled the wrought-iron bell chain by the door, and somewhere there was a low tinkle. A teenage girl answered the door, bare black legs emerging from a simple cotton frock.

“I’d like to see Missy Coltrane,” said Hannah.

She nodded and admitted him, showing him into a large and airy sitting room. Open double doors led to a balcony with spectacular views over the island and the glittering blue sea that stretched away to Andros in the Bahamas, far off below the horizon.

The room was cool despite having no air conditioning. Hannah noticed it had no electricity at all. Three burnished brass oil lamps stood on low tables. Cooling breezes wafted from the open balcony doors through to the open windows on the other side. The array of memorabilia indicated it was the home of an elderly person. Hannah sauntered around the room as he waited.

There were pictures on the wall, scores of them, and all of birds of the Caribbean, skillfully painted in delicate watercolors. The only portrait that was not of a bird was of a man in the full white uniform of a British Colonial Governor.
He
stood staring out at the room, gray-haired and gray-moustached, with a tanned, lined, and kindly face. Two rows of miniature medals covered the left breast of his tunic. Hannah peered to see the small label beneath the oil painting. It said, SIR ROBERT COLTRANE, K.B.E., GOVERNOR OF THE BARCLAY
ISLANDS,
1945-1953. He held his white helmet, adorned with white cockerel feathers, in the crook of his right arm; his left hand rested on the pommel of his sword.

Hannah smiled ruefully. “Missy” Coltrane must in fact be Lady Coltrane, the former Governor’s widow. He moved farther round the wall to a display cabinet. Behind the glass, pinned to the hessian board, were the former Governor’s military trophies, collected and displayed by his widow. There was the deep purple ribbon of the Victoria Cross, Britain’s highest award for gallantry in the field, and the date of its award, 1917. It was flanked by the Distinguished Service Cross and the Military Cross. Other items the warrior had carried on his campaigns were pinned to the board around the medals.

“He was a very brave man,” said a clear voice behind him.

Hannah spun around, embarrassed.

She had entered silently, the rubber tires of her wheelchair making no sound on the tiles. She was small and frail, with a cap of shining white curls and bright blue eyes.

Behind her stood the manservant who had pushed her in from the garden, a giant of awe-inspiring size. She turned to him.

“Thank you, Firestone. I’ll be all right now.”

He nodded and withdrew. She propelled herself a few feet farther into the room and gestured for Hannah to be seated. She smiled.

“The name? He was a foundling, discovered on a rubbish dump, in a Firestone tire. Now, you must be Detective Chief Superintendent Hannah from Scotland Yard. That’s a very high rank for these poor islands. What can I do for you?”

“I must apologize for calling you Missy Coltrane to your housemaid,” he said. “No one told me you were Lady Coltrane.”

“No more,” she said. “Here I am just Missy. They all call me that. I prefer it that way. Old habits die hard. As you may detect, I was not born British, but in South Carolina.”

“Your late husband”—Hannah nodded toward the portrait—“was Governor here once.”

“Yes. We met in the war. Robert had been through the First War. He didn’t have to come back for a second dose, but he did. He got wounded again. I was a nurse. We fell in love, married in 1943, and had ten glorious years until he died. There were twenty-five years between our ages, but it didn’t matter a damn. After the war, the British Government made him Governor here. After he died, I stayed on. He was only fifty-six when he died. Delayed war wounds.”

Hannah calculated. Sir Robert would have been born in 1897, got his Victoria Cross at twenty. She would be sixty-eight, too young for a wheelchair. She seemed to read his mind with those bright blue eyes.

“I slipped and fell,” she said. “Ten years ago. Broke my back. But you didn’t come four thousand miles to discuss an old woman in a wheelchair. How can I help you?”

Hannah explained.

“The fact is, I cannot perceive a motive. Whoever shot Sir Marston must have hated him enough to do it. But among these islanders, I cannot perceive a motive. You know these people. Who would want to do it, and why?”

Lady Coltrane wheeled herself to the open window and stared out for a while.

“Mr. Hannah, you are right. I do know these people. I have lived here for forty-five years. I love these islands, and I love their people. I hope I may think that they love me.”

She turned around and gazed at him. “In the world scheme of things, these islands matter for nothing. Yet these people seem to have discovered something that has eluded the world outside. They have found out how to be happy. Just that—not rich, not powerful, but happy.

“Now London wants us to have independence. And two candidates have appeared to compete for the power: Mr. Johnson, who is very wealthy and has given large sums to the islands, for whatever motive; and Mr. Livingstone, a socialist, who wants to nationalize everything and divide it up among the poor. Very noble, of course. Mr. Johnson, with his plans for development and prosperity, and Mr. Livingstone, with his plans for equality—I know them both. Knew them when they were boys. Knew them when they left in their teens to pursue careers elsewhere. And now they are back.”

“You suspect either of them?” asked Hannah.

“Mr. Hannah, it is the men they have brought with them. Look at the men who surround them. These are violent men, Mr. Hannah. The islanders know it. There have been threats, beatings. Perhaps you should look at the entourages of these two men, Mr. Hannah.”

On the drive back down the mountain, Desmond Hannah thought it over. A contract hit? The killing of Sir Marston had all the earmarks of one. After lunch he thought he would have a talk with the two candidates and take a look at their entourages.

As Hannah returned to the sitting room at Government House, a plump Englishman with several chins above his clerical collar jumped up from a chair. Parker was with him.

“Ah, Chief, this is the Reverend Simon Prince, the local Anglican vicar. He has some interesting information for us.”

Hannah wondered where Parker had got the word
Chief
from. He hated it.
Sir
would do nicely.
Desmond
, later—much later. Maybe.

“Any luck with that second bullet?”

“Er, no—not yet.”

“Better get on with it,” said Hannah. Parker disappeared through the French windows. Hannah closed them.

“Well now, Mr. Prince. What would you like to tell me?”

“It’s Quince,” said the vicar. “Quince. This is all very distressing.”

“It is indeed. Especially for the Governor.”

“Oh, ah, yes. I meant really—well … my coming to you with information about a fellow of the cloth. I don’t know whether I should, but I felt it might be germane.”

“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?” suggested Hannah mildly.

The reverend calmed down and sat.

“It all happened last Friday,” he said. He told the story of the delegation from the Committee for Concerned Citizens and their rebuff by the Governor. When he had finished, Hannah frowned.

“What exactly did Reverend Drake say?” he asked.

“He said,” repeated Quince, “ ‘We have to get rid of that Governor and get ourselves a new one.’ ”

Hannah rose. “Thank you very much, Mr. Quince. May I suggest you say no more about this, but leave it with me?”

After the grateful vicar scuttled out, Hannah thought it over. He did not particularly like stool pigeons, but he would now have to check out the fire-breathing Baptist, Walter Drake, as well.

At that point Jefferson appeared with a tray of cold lobster tails in mayonnaise. Hannah sighed. There were some compensations to being sent four thousand miles from home. And if the Foreign Office was paying … He poured himself a glass of chilled Chablis and started.

During Hannah’s lunch, Chief Inspector Jones came back from the airport. “No one has left the island,” he told Hannah, “not in the last forty hours.”

“Not legally, at any rate,” said Hannah. “Now, another chore, Mr. Jones. Do you keep a firearms register?”

“Of course.”

“Fine. Would you check it through for me and visit everyone who has a listed firearm on the islands? We are looking for a large-caliber handgun. Particularly a handgun that cannot be produced, or one that has been recently cleaned and gleams with fresh oil.”

“Fresh oil?”

“After being fired,” said Hannah.

“Ah, yes, of course.”

“One last thing, Chief Inspector. Does Reverend Drake have a registered firearm?”

“No. Of that I am certain.”

When he had gone Hannah asked to see Lieutenant Haverstock. “Do you by any chance own a service revolver or automatic?” he asked.

“Oh, I say, look here. You don’t really think …” expostulated the young subaltern.

“It occurred to me it might have been stolen, or misappropriated and replaced.”

“Ah, yes. See your point, old boy. Actually, no. No gun. Never brought one to the island. Got a ceremonial sword, though.”

“If Sir Marston had been stabbed, I might think of arresting you,” Hannah said mildly. “Any guns in Government House at all?”

“No, not to my knowledge. Anyway, the killer came from outside, surely? Through the garden wall?”

Hannah had examined the wrenched-off lock on the steel gate in the garden wall at first light. From the angles of the two broken hasps and the torn-apart bar of the great padlock, there was a little question that someone had used a long and very strong crowbar to force the old steel to snap like that. But it also occurred to Hannah that the snapping of the lock might have been a ruse. It could have been done hours or even a couple of days earlier. No one had ever tested the gate; it was deemed to be rusted solid.

The killer could have torn off the lock and left the gate in the closed position in advance, then come through the house to kill the Governor and retreat back into the house afterward. What Hannah needed was that second bullet, hopefully intact, and the gun that had fired it. He looked out at the glittering blue sea. If it was down there, he’d never find it.

He rose, wiped his lips, and went out to find Oscar and the Jaguar. It was time he had a word with Reverend Drake.

Sam McCready also sat at lunch. When he entered the open-sided verandah dining room of the Quarter Deck, every table was full. Out on the square, men in bright beach shirts and wraparound dark glasses were positioning a flatbed truck decorated with bunting and daubed with posters from Marcus Johnson. The great man was due to speak at three.

Sam looked around the terrace and saw a single vacant chair. It was at a table that was occupied by one other luncher.

“We’re a bit crowded today. Mind if I join you?” he asked.

Eddie Favaro waved at the chair. “No problem.”

“You here for the fishing?” asked McCready as he studied the brief menu.

“Yep.”

“Odd,” said McCready after ordering Seviche, a dish of raw fish marinated in fresh lime juice. “If I didn’t know better, I’d have said you were a cop.”

He did not mention the long-shot inquiry he had made the previous evening after studying Favaro at the bar—the call to a friend in the Miami office of the FBI—or the answer he had received that morning.

Favaro put down his beer and stared at him. “Who the hell are you?” he asked. “A British bobby?”

McCready waved his hand deprecatingly. “Oh no, nothing so glamorous. Just a civil servant trying to get a peaceful holiday away from the desk.”

“So what’s this about my being a cop?”

“Instinct. You carry yourself like a cop. Would you mind telling me why you’re really here?”

“Why the hell should I?”

“Because,” McCready suggested mildly, “you arrived just before the Governor was shot. And because of this.”

He handed Favaro a sheet of paper. It was on Foreign Office-headed notepaper. It announced that Mr. Frank Dillon was an official of that office and begged “to whom it may concern” to be as helpful as possible.

Favaro handed it back and thought things over. Lieutenant Broderick had made it plain that he was on his own once he entered British territory.

“Officially, I’m on vacation,” Favaro began. “No, I don’t fish. Unofficially, I’m trying to find out why my partner was killed last week, and by whom.”

“Tell me about it,” suggested McCready. “I might be able to help.”

Favaro told him how Julio Gomez had died. The Englishman chewed his raw fish and listened.